Back To The Vortex...

With mere days to go until Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space is finally to be released on an eager game-buying public, I thought it might be an appropriate time to revisit my previous thoughts on the impending Tuesday Knights' Doctor Who game.

I've got a bit longer than I'd originally thought to plot a decent campaign background out because Pete has stepped up to run his Top Secret SI game, which begins tomorrow evening, but I remain undecided on the actual format of the campaign.

It almost seems a pity to restrict them to an Earth-based campaign when the system allows for travel in all of time and space, but on the other hand that's a very large sandbox for them to roam in if I simply hand them the keys of a TARDIS and say: "Right, where do you want to go?"

Iris Wildthyme (played by Katy Manning)

I'm still throwing out ideas of actors to 'portray' the game's central Time Lord character (if that's the route the players want to go), although I'm also quite keen that if we go for the 'classic' Time Lord plus companions set up that Clare take that pivotal role as I could easily see her portraying an eccentric, Iris Wildthyme-type Time Lady.

The newest additions (to the names I threw out for the players to mull over last time) are:

Sandi Tolsvig

Joanna Lumley

Robert Carlyle

Bill Bailey

Adam Buxton

Dylan Moran

Of course, I'd be delighted if my players came up with some leftfield suggestions of their own, after all they are the ones who are going to be playing these characters in the game.

The insights into the game system I've been getting from the fan forum have got me more psyched about this game than any other RPG I've waited the release of, and the ideas that have been flying around the various threads have got my head spinning with half-formed possibilities - but as the Tuesday Knights found out with my Labyrinth Lord game I work best with their input and feedback.

If I can draw them in at the character creation phase, then I think we should be onto a winner - the problem with the Labyrinth Lord game was that they became increasingly disillusioned with the character creation process because the characters were getting killed off so quickly it almost wasn't worth giving them a name let alone a detailed background and life history!

Given that we just can't physically play once or twice a week like we used to as schoolkids means we need characters that will survive, so their adventures can continue from session to session and a story can develop, rather than frustratingly having to start from scratch each month.

It's difficult to say yet without actually holding the shiny box and its contents in my sweaty hands, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Cubicle 7's Adventures In Time & Space may actually be the closest I will ever get to my "holy grail" of what I perceive to be "the perfect roleplaying game" (for my needs and style of running/playing a system).